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Ideology matters, folks. I've been publicly calling Republicans a fascist party bc their only consistent ideological position is white power. Their 180° reversals on debt & national security underscore the point & make them especially dangerous. No "compromise" will fix this.
I am deeply worried that white Dems, & white folks more broadly, don't understand this point—that our national religion of whiteness will lead white Americans to embrace a neo-redemptionist politics. Nothing could be more dangerous.
The original politics of "redemption" came after the Civil War when white Americans from #bothsides found common cause in white power—suppressing migrant, white women's, & especially Black rights. This "reunion" of Rebel & U.S. soldiers at Gettysburg is a classic of the genre.
The term itself—"redemption"—comes from the white paramilitary units who sought to "redeem" their states from "Negro rule" by murdering their political opponents, especially Black southerners.
Lots of quibbling on this point, but as a historian of this movement, I think it would be correct to call theirs a proto-fascist movement.
But surely white northerners rode to the rescue, right? NOPE!
White northerners & even white abolitionists like Harriet Beecher Stowe believed in racial hierarchy & embraced the lingo of "redemption" on religious terms. They decided it would be Christian to forgive the fascists.
White northerners & even white abolitionists like Harriet Beecher Stowe believed in racial hierarchy & embraced the lingo of "redemption" on religious terms. They decided it would be Christian to forgive the fascists.
To forgive them AS they carried out murders of Black southerners & white leftists.
And what did these fascist "redeemers" ask for? Why, "unity," of course.
And what did these fascist "redeemers" ask for? Why, "unity," of course.
Unity in the idea that America was "a white man's country." They even plastered all over their campaign banners.
Which brings me back to the issue of ideology. During the Civil War era, the national parties organized overwhelmingly around slavery (& white supremacy).
